Ilona van Tuinen appointed as new head of Rijksmuseum’s Print Room
Publication date: 13 May 2022 - 09:00
Art historian Ilona van Tuinen is to take up her position as Head of the Print Room in May 2022, succeeding Jane Turner, who has retired. Ilona van Tuinen is a specialist in Dutch drawings of the 16th and 17th centuries. She previously worked in Paris and New York.
I consider it a great honour and responsibility to succeed Jane Turner as Head of the Print Room. The collection of drawings, prints and photography of the Rijksmuseum Print Room is an essential part of our cultural history. Together with the team, I will work to develop new ways of sharing the beauty and urgency of the Print Room’s magnificent art with as many people as possible.
Ilona van Tuinen, Head of the Rijksmuseum Print Room
Ilona van Tuinen (b. 1982) studied Art History at the University of Amsterdam, where she gained her Master’s with honours in 2009. Following her graduation and an internship at the Rijksmuseum, she held positions at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York as its Annette and Oscar de la Renta Assistant Curator (2015-18), Fondation Custodia at the Frits Lugt Collection in Paris (2014-15) and The Leiden Collection in New York (2011-14). Van Tuinen also worked at Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden from 2010 to 2011. In 2018 she was appointed curator of 16th- and 17th-century drawings at the Rijksmuseum’s Print Room.
Ilona van Tuinen’s international experience, original perspective and great love of the art of drawing enable her to perpetuate the connoisseurship tradition while also establishing new connections between the multiple types of art. In so doing, she is certain to make a substantial contribution to the knowledge about, and presentation of, the Rijksmuseum collection.
Taco Dibbits, director of the Rijksmuseum
The Print Room
The Print Room at the Rijksmuseum contains one of the world’s most important collections of prints, drawings and photographs. The collection has an international focus with an emphasis on Dutch prints and drawings from the 17th century, and in recent years great efforts have been made to assemble a representative collection of 20th-century Dutch prints and drawings. The collection also includes many important 19th- and 20th-century photographs and Japanese prints. The Print Room collection comprises some 800,000 works on paper.
Vital support
The Rijksmuseum is grateful for all forms of support. It is clear that government subsidies, corporate contributions and support from funds, as well as donations, legacies and Friends are, and will remain, essential to the Rijksmuseum.